


U-turn

by rendawnie



Series: Pieces [15]
Category: Pentagon (Korea Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Awkward Flirting, Awkwardness, M/M, Rain, Secrets, Storms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-15
Updated: 2017-07-15
Packaged: 2018-12-03 14:20:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11534016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rendawnie/pseuds/rendawnie
Summary: Yuto walks three miles to and from work every day. Wooseok isn’t going to let him anymore.Soundtrack: "U-turn", Tegan and Sara





	U-turn

“Shit,” Wooseok curses under his breath, trying to navigate his car through the twisty back roads between work and home in a literal monsoon. It wasn’t even supposed to rain today, and it definitely wasn’t supposed to dump a flood’s worth of water on the outskirts of town, where the university sits. But here it is, and Wooseok is already a cautious (read: anxious) driver, and this is just making it ten times worse.

It’s getting near dusk, and the half-light of day fading is making the water shimmer off the road in a weirdly transfixing way, but Wooseok can’t really afford to concentrate on that right now, because the minute his attention drifts away from driving, even for a second, he nearly runs over Adachi Yuto.

No one takes this way home, except Wooseok and Yuto, and so Wooseok can afford to pull his car to a screeching halt down the road from where he’s just had to swerve to avoid Yuto, trudging along the paved shoulder without an umbrella. Wooseok sees Yuto every day. First he sees him in his Intermediate Drawing class, and then he sees him bussing tables at restaurant next to Wooseok’s part time job at a copymat, and then he sees him on the way home, walking while Wooseok sails by in his car.

It’s not a short walk. It’s at least three or four miles, Wooseok figures. He’s betting it feels like triple that, in rain like this. Without an umbrella.

Behind the wheel of his car, Wooseok frowns. Yuto should at least have some friends, or _someone_ who can pick him up in situations like these. But then again, he’s quiet. He keeps to himself for the most part. So, maybe not.

Wooseok sighs, turning the car around and navigating it slowly back around to where Yuto is still plodding through the ankle-high water, covered in only a hoodie and face down to the ground. Yuto either doesn’t notice his u-turn, or he’s ignoring it, because Wooseok did almost just kind of flatten the guy into the asphalt. Almost. It was at least sixty percent Yuto’s fault, okay?

Whatever.

Wooseok rolls down the passenger window of the car, leaning over to be heard as he creeps along beside Yuto. “Hey. HEY!! ADACHI YUTO!!!” he screams, but it’s drowned out by the weather. He frowns, trying again.

“Excuse me!! Adachi Yuto? YUTO!!”

Nothing. Just more trudging.

Finally, Wooseok leans on his horn, exasperated.

That works.

Yuto jumps a mile in the air, head shooting up and eyes darting around wildly until he lays them on Wooseok and Wooseok’s car, and Yuto furrows his brow and shakes his head quickly, mouthing _no thank you_ as an answer to whatever question he thinks Wooseok’s asked.

Wooseok should leave, really. He should just drive on away and let Yuto be idiotic in peace. Except now he’s noticing things. He notices that Yuto’s shivering. He’s noticing how thin Yuto’s hoodie is. How there’s a big hole in the shoulder of it. How old and worn his shoes look, dragging through the grass and mud on the side of the road. So, he doesn’t leave.

Instead, he slams his palm into the car horn again, over and over in some sort of pattern that might resemble Morse code, if Morse code has a special, short signal for _GET IN THE FUCKING CAR BEFORE YOU DROWN, MORON._

This time, Yuto charges up to the open window and sticks his head in an inch or two. “Dude. What??” he asks, between his teeth literally chattering. Wooseok leans over and pulls the door handle to open the passenger side. He’s not taking no for an answer.

“Get in. It’s cold as hell and you don’t have an umbrella.” These are all obvious things, Wooseok feels. Yuto should have known them already.

Yuto straightens back up, shrugging. “I’m fine. Go home, Wooseok.”

Wooseok has never had a conversation with Adachi Yuto in his life, and he has no idea how Yuto knows his name. He knows Yuto because he’s on the university baseball team. He’s almost positive none of Yuto’s teammates are aware that Yuto makes this trek on foot, day in and day out.

“No,” Wooseok replies, as calmly as he can when the rain is worsening again. He’d really like to get home, himself, but Yuto lives literally two doors down from him at the dormitory, and it’s just _dumb_ not to take him home. It’s dumb. Yuto’s being dumb.

“It’s another two miles to the dorms,” he continues, trying to keep his voice reasonable and even. “I will follow you the entire way there if you don’t let me give you a ride back.”

He’s almost sure he will. Probably.

Yuto stops and stares at him, so Wooseok presses on the brakes and stops too. “Are you serious?” Yuto asks disdainfully.

Wooseok shrugs. “I could be. You don’t know. You don’t know how weird I am.”

Yuto snorts. “That’s probably not what you want to say to someone you’re offering a ride to.”

Wooseok blushes. “Yeah. Um. Probably not. Except that you apparently know who I am, so you probably know I’m not going to axe murder you. Too much effort. I just don’t feel right letting you walk in this shit. Come on, Yuto.” He’s almost pleading by the time he stops talking.

Yuto blinks up at the sky, then he looks around. No one else. No other cars for miles.

Wooseok waits.

Finally, Yuto sighs, mutters _whatever_ , and gets in the car.

Wooseok tries not to think about how much water Yuto’s dripping onto the leather seats he spent hours restoring with his father, over the summer before university started. It’ll be fine. He’ll look up how to fix them if necessary.

Yuto’s watching him apprehensively, waiting, and he might be blushing. Wooseok hopes it’s the heat seeping back into his skin from being out of the elements. He rolls the window up, jerks the car back onto the wet road, and starts off towards the dorms again.

Neither of them talk for a few minutes, and then Wooseok can’t contain his questions anymore.

“Why don’t you have one of your baseball dudes pick you up on days like this?” he wonders aloud, pausing at a stop sign.

Yuto pushes the hood off his head, ruffling his damp locks with a frown. “I can’t do that.” Wooseok decides he’s going to ignore Yuto’s obnoxiously appealing bone structure for the time being.

“Why not?” he questions.

“Because!” Yuto practically yells, his voice echoing off the frame of the car. “Because,” he continues, quieter. “Then they’d know that I don’t have any money. That all my clothes are secondhand and I have to work three jobs to pay for school because I lost my scholarship and I don’t want to go home. I want to play baseball.”

Wooseok certainly wasn’t expecting all that.

He doesn’t reply for a while, thinking of the best way to proceed. Pondering how best to remove his foot from where it’s currently lodged in his mouth, metaphorically.

“Oh,” he says finally. Faintly.

Yuto warms his hands up at the vents spilling hot air into the car. “Yeah. ‘Oh’,” he agrees, sarcasm dripping from his voice.

“Why did you lose your scholarship?” Wooseok asks after another minute of silence, guiding the car onto the edge of campus. He wonders if Yuto will notice that he’s driving much slower than he needs to. He’s not sure how else to make this whole bizarre situation last. He’s not really sure why he wants it to.

“I flunked nearly all my classes this semester except for Algebra and Physical Education,” Yuto admits, hands clasped in his lap. “I just...kind of gave up.”

Wooseok frowns. “You didn’t talk to anyone? Ask one of the counselors what you could do?”

Yuto shrugs. “It seemed pointless. I just got a job instead. Three jobs. They only pay for tuition though, barely, and I sold nearly everything else I own, so all my clothes are old or from the secondhand store, now. Walking everywhere doesn’t exactly help them stay in one piece.”

Wooseok parks in the lot near the dorms they both live in, thinking. He doesn’t turn off the car, and Yuto doesn’t get out. He glances over at the passenger seat, and Yuto is half-turned towards Wooseok, head resting against the leather and eyes nearly closed.

“I can help you,” he says finally. “My dad works in the administration office. I can see what I can do, Yuto.”

Yuto is about to reply, probably about to shoot Wooseok down, he knows, so he continues on hurriedly. “And, I can tutor you. I get pretty good grades. I can probably help with whatever you’re struggling with.”

Yuto’s eyes open a little wider. He looks suspicious, like he’s not sure why Wooseok, why _anyone,_ would help him.

“Why?” he asks, a second later.

Wooseok thinks about how to answer. He considers all his options, but he keeps getting distracted by the weird electricity he can feel in the car, the _something_ that might exist between them, if they let it. He doesn’t know if he’s jumping the gun, or going way off-book, when he replies.

“Yuto, how do you know my name?”

This time, Yuto is _definitely_ blushing. “I, um...I saw you at the copymat all the time when I was at work, and you came in a few times to pick up lunch, and...one day I walked over there because I wanted to...I don’t know. I don’t know what I wanted to do, but I went over to the copymat to _something,_ and you were off that day I guess and your boss told me your name. Later, I realized we both lived here.”

Wooseok doesn’t say anything. He holds his breath.

“And...I don’t know. I liked you, I liked the way you looked, but then I started failing everything and my life fell apart, and I didn’t have _time_ to like you, y’know? I see you every day, driving past me, Wooseok. I just...I didn’t want my problems to be _your_ problems.”

By the time Yuto finishes spilling out all those words between them, Wooseok is grinning, and he’s looking Yuto up and down, and Yuto is squirming visibly under his gaze, until finally he rolls his eyes and asks, “What? Stop staring at me.”

This time, Wooseok _does_ turn the car off. “Yuto, what size shoes do you wear?”

Yuto grins, too. He’s almost smirking, actually. “Big enough.”

Wooseok laughs. It’s stopped raining. He gets out of his car, and when he and Yuto get to his dorm room, Wooseok digs a bunch of clothes out that almost sort of fit Yuto (okay, he’s drowning in them a little, really, and the shoes are _definitely_ too big), and then they try to study Korean Lit for a while. Another thunderstorm rolls in, and Yuto finally tells Wooseok he’s scared of the very same storms he’s had to walk through for weeks.

Wooseok makes fun of him for all of thirty seconds before the lights go out and Yuto has an understated panic attack, and then they spend the rest of the night cuddling on Wooseok’s bed, which is absolutely not big enough for the both of them, but it feels just right.


End file.
